The development of an instrument for evaluating clinical teachers: involving stakeholders to determine content validity.
BACKGROUND
Research indicates that the quality of supervision strongly influences the learning of medical students in clinical practice. Clinical teachers need feedback to improve their supervisory skills. The available instruments either lack a clear theoretical framework or are not suitable for providing feedback to individual teachers. We developed an evaluation instrument based on the 'cognitive apprenticeship model'.


OBJECTIVE
The aim was to estimate the content validity of the developed instrument.


METHODS
Item relevance was rated on a five-point scale (1 = highly irrelevant, 5 = highly relevant) by three groups of stakeholders in undergraduate clinical teaching: educationalists (N = 12), doctors (N = 16) and students (N = 12). Additionally, stakeholders commented on content, wording and omission of items.


RESULTS
The items were generally rated as very relevant (Mean = 4.3, SD = 0.38, response = 95%) and any differences between the stakeholder groups were small. The results led to elimination of 4 items, rewording of 13 items and addition of 1 item.


CONCLUSIONS
The cognitive apprenticeship model appears to offer a useful framework for the development of an evaluation instrument aimed at providing feedback to individual clinical teachers on the quality of student supervision. Further studies in larger populations will have to establish the instrument's statistical validity and generalizability.
Stalmeijer
Renée E
RE
Department of Educational Development and Research, Faculty of Health, Medicine, and Life Sciences, Maastricht University, The Netherlands. r.stalmeijer@educ.unimaas.nl
Dolmans
Diana H J M
DH
Wolfhagen
Ineke H A P
IH
Muijtjens
Arno M M
AM
Scherpbier
Albert J J A
AJ
D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate; D004650:Employee Performance Appraisal / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005180:Faculty, Medical / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D009426:Netherlands